Too many French players could cause problems at Newcastle, admits former Toon star Ginola

David Ginola has warned Newcastle that having so many French players has the potential to cause tension at the club.

Ginola was the only French player in Newcastle’s squad when he joined them in 1995 from Paris St-Germain. That forced him to learn the language and throw himself into the culture, and he is fondly remembered in the city for his two years there.

Now more than a third of the squad – 12 of the 33 players – are French and Ginola believes having such a large contingent from the same country can cause problems.

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He said: ‘You can’t just arrive in Newcastle and say, “I’m just going to live my life, I don’t want to understand the culture”.

'It could be bad in a way, if all the French players stick too much together, you don’t speak English, you speak French together in the dressing room. I guess there will be some rules in the dressing room that the French should speak English. That could be a problem.

‘It’s also a problem with the English players. I’ve been in this situation before when I was speaking in French with some of my friends, sometimes English players start to get annoyed because they think we are talking about them. It can bring some issues in a dressing room and this is something you have to avoid.’

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He added: ‘When you come from Saint Tropez, and you play four years in Paris, and you arrive in the North-East in England, you think that people speak English but in fact they speak Geordie, so for me it was like a foreign language – but another foreign language.

'So I said to myself that would be difficult. But having said that, I did everything I could to be accepted – learning the language, doing my best every day in training.’